Mine
by rimshotstinger
Summary: After the Hime Festival concludes, Nagi and Mashiro disappear into Fuka Academy-but not for long. If he wants to continue life on Earth, Nagi will have to trick a Hime into liking him. But can he trick himself into believing that's all he's doing it for?
1. Chapter 1

If, come the light of day, shadows retreated to a secret hideaway until they could again reign over the world, then surely, deep in the recesses of the exclusive Fuka Academy was where they congregated. For the darkness beyond the many-meters-tall swinging doors unseen by students was like an ocean abyss in its depth, and enveloped the two figures within it like a swath of pure moonless night. This was the darkness meant to lead them into the dawn of new life. After all, Samsara wouldn't be avoided forever, even by those who'd already managed to do so for centuries.

Nagi Homura, unseen as he was in the thick blackness, and distinguished only by his uneven, nervous breathing, sat where he assumed was across from Mashiro Kazahana, whose own breathing was much more relaxed, almost in the rhythm of sleep. But why was the school headmistress hidden away in the oppressive dark of a secret chamber with a boy that nobody attending the school, save twelve special girls, would even recognize?

Because, as she had said, it was _where they both belonged_.

_Not a chance_, Nagi thought to that. Who said they had to resign themselves to fade away like this? With the Hime Star and the malicious Obsidian Lord now gone, it was obvious that these two dwelling in the dark were next in line: the Crystal Princess-turned-Child and the dark disciple of the aforementioned Lord. And while that might be true, what escaped Nagi was the reasoning behind having to just wait it out in this depressing, claustrophobic place. If they were destined to finally leave this world, Nagi would rather not simply fade away in the dark, his centuries-long life amounting to about as much as a soon-forgotten dream. In fact, he'd rather not leave at all. Where Mashiro easily resigned herself to crumbling away to dust as the magics that had sustained them for too long slowly ebbed away, Nagi would not go so gently.

He'd learned enough in his extended time in the service of the Obsidian Lord to know that he'd simply reincarnate once this black prison was empty of their bodies. He in fact remembered a Battle Princess from three centuries before who bore a shocking resemblance to Mai Tokiha, and not due to random coincidence. That girl three-hundred years ago had lost the Festival to his current cellmate, but her soul had been tenacious enough to return in the modern day for a rematch. One that, Nagi was pleased to say, she'd won this time around. Well, sort of.

However, just because Mashiro said it was their time to at last take their fated ride upon the wheel of life and death after dodging it for so many years – him for many more, even, than her – that didn't make it true. _He_ was free, at last, from the service of one master, so how was it he seemed already to have fallen under the heel of another? Was he about to let this _girl_ dictate the course of his future, let her tell him how to spend what _she'd decided _would be his final days?

Because hadn't she decided? Nagi knew there'd be ways to stick around even without the Obsidian Lord or the Hime Star. The Star's chosen maidens still walked the earth, and, although stripped of their materializing abilities, carried within them always that which had made them Hime in the first place. Why else would Mai Tokiha mirror that girl from the past so closely? Because each Hime held within them the singular soul of a long line of previous maidens. And that meant the Hime themselves were the important part, not the Star. It wasn't _choosing _girls, but its gaze merely following them throughout history. It sensed in them the magic needed to become Hime – magic Nagi knew he could use to continue his days on Earth.

He only needed to find a Hime, any Hime, and become her _most important person_. Such a connection would undoubtedly tether him to the mortal plane for as long as the girl lasted. After all, it was the way the Festival itself had worked. And he knew everything about the Festival.

"What do you think you're doing?" The question was Mashiro's response to Nagi getting to his feet.

"I've decided I'm not staying here after all," Nagi replied in what must have been her general direction, judging only by her voice. He set to work pawing at the cold stone walls for the huge, heavy doors that would lead him back outside.

"Nagi, you must take your place in the natural order of things. The Festival is over for good. You and I are no longer needed here. Please, accept your fate and wait here," said Mashiro. She wasn't pleading, that would've given Nagi too much pleasure. She talked as if simply stating that the sky was blue.

"We can stay if we want. We can use the Hime," Nagi revealed, shuffling along the wall, groping for the smooth surface of polished wood.

"No, Nagi," Mashiro said sternly, like a mother telling her son not to wander off into the forest alone. "That's not your place. Why even do this?"

"Because I enjoy life, and I'm good at living it. And I don't wanna start over from scratch," he said. Just then, coarse stone gave way to smooth wood, and a moment later Nagi found the large iron ring and took it up in both hands. Then he waited.

"You won't care about that once we're gone, Nagi," Mashiro said as if trying to calm him. "We won't remember our previous lives."

That was exactly the problem. Nagi wanted to remember. Refereeing each iteration of the Festival had given him more than enough time to grow accustomed to its nearly unchanging set of twelve competitive souls. "Accustomed" here meaning that he'd grown to like them. He was used to them, and raptly anticipated meeting them every three centuries. They were like the coming of spring after a long, three-hundred year winter. Like spring, he looked forward to them, and enjoyed them while they lasted. They were fun to taunt and tease, fun to watch, and while he was at it, not bad to look at, either.

_My Hime_...

"Sorry, Mashiro, but I've already had enough of this gloomy place," he said. He secretly hoped it wouldn't take too much longer for Mashiro to fade. He really didn't like the thought of her enduring it alone for very long. After all, she'd been one of his Hime once.

"I guess there's no stopping you. Goodbye, Nagi. I hope you find what you're looking for," he heard her say, sounding more tired than sad. That was good.

But who was it he was looking for? In order to keep living, he'd obviously have to trick one of the girls into liking him. But most of his Hime had found themselves someone they loved during the Festival. It would be hard to usurp that. Then Nagi remembered Mai, whose _most important person_ had shifted from her younger brother, Takumi, to Yuichi, her classmate and now boyfriend. So if family could be superseded by whomever you fell in love with in that regard, well, that left only Nao Yuki and Mikoto Minagi as candidates.

_A mother and a brother_, Nagi thought as he held onto the ring. _Replacing the brother would probably be a lot easier_. After all, Nao's mother was still in the hospital. The sympathy that came from her bedridden state alone would be tough to crack. So, he guessed, Mikoto would do. Being only a third-year middle school student and fourteen years-old, it might have seemed perverted if Nagi himself hadn't held on to the age he was when he first came into service of his master, that of fifteen. With the only noticeable differences between them being a year and about four inches in height, he figured he was in the clear. Besides, he didn't have to like her back, only fool her into liking him.

"This is goodbye, Mashiro," Nagi said without turning to face her. Then, as he yanked on the ring and the thunderous lurching of the massive door signalled his escape back into the outside world, he left an unspoken thought behind with her. And as the door slammed shut behind him, he hoped she understood it.

_I'll miss you_.

Leaping on instinct, expecting to sail to the courtyard of the school carried by magic, Nagi instead was made an example of by gravity, as a warning to all who might underestimate her. Unable to catch himself after being pulled back down to earth so unexpectedly suddenly, he slipped and landed face-first on the stone floor.

Hot pain assaulted his nose to remind him that with the Obsidian Lord gone, so too was his magic. And with every passing minute, he was fading from the world along with them. Getting up and dusting off the dirt which clung stubbornly to his white collared shirt like badges awarded for foolishness, he simply walked out of the place instead, slightly perturbed.

Shading his eyes from the bright sunlight with his hand, Nagi surveyed the courtyard he'd come to with predatory intensity. Where were his Hime? He looked for a shock of orange like the setting sun amongst the sea of earth-toned heads. That would be Mai, and where Mai was, Mikoto was sure to be. But the sea undulated more than he'd expected. It was as if they were all filing in for classes that he knew had ended for the year. It was graduation day for the third-year high school students, after all.

Ah, yes, the field. Nagi remembered that was where his Hime had all gathered around a blanket lain on the grass for a picnic with their friends. But as he turned, he noticed it was already gone. But if they had run off in the hour he'd been gone, didn't that mean most everyone else should also have gone home for the summer? Why were there so many students still about in the courtyard?

Switching tactics, Nagi made his way, slowly and on foot, to the dorms. Mikoto had no place else to go during the breaks, being a ward of the school, so he supposed that if the rest of them had taken off, she might have retreated there. He stopped himself in the middle of squatting for a ground-to-window leap, remembering the harsh lesson gravity had rather pounded into his nose. Stuffing his hands in his pockets, he instead strolled in casually and made his way up to the third floor, where Mai's and Mikoto's shared room was located. He got some odd looks from the girls yet to leave, being a guy in the girl's dorm. He didn't care.

Rapping on the door he knew to be theirs and hearing the footsteps on the other side, Nagi thought himself completely prepared to meet Mikoto—

Until he had to point his eyes upward. The door had opened, and Mikoto had answered it, but she was quite different from how she'd been a mere hour before.

Not only did she seem a good three inches taller than Nagi all of a sudden, but her hair was somehow longer. The spikes it jutted out in, now too long to stand straight up, were feathery rather than pointy, and though they still swept skyward somewhat, her head looked a great deal less like the husk of a chestnut now. What's more, the way it hung down in the front to form uneven bangs covered most of her previously exposed forehead. The only part of her that hadn't drastically changed were the long twin braids which hung to adorn either side of her face.

They really were the _only _part. Not only was she taller and her hair longer, but her oddly beige uniform couldn't hide the unmistakable swell of her fully-developed bosom. Nagi didn't think she lived up to her promise of someday being "bigger than Mai", but she certainly was solid competition for Natsuki now. Now. When the hell was "now"?

Mikoto just stood there, staring with her recognizable golden, feline eyes, as if in shock. Clearly he was an unexpected guest, though he'd seen her only an hour before. Unless...

"Nagi?" she asked in a voice he hardly recognized. It was a young lady's voice rather than a girl's.

"Hello, my Hime," Nagi said, having regained his composure enough to not only address this new Mikoto so familiarly, but to shoulder his way past her to intrude on her dorm room. He wasn't one to get distracted by pretty girls like human boys, and Mikoto _had_ become a pretty girl.

He heard the door shut behind him as he looked about the room. "What do you want, Nagi? Why'd you come here after all this time?"

Unsurprised by this point, Nagi responded with, "So, it's been a while, has it?"

"Three years _is_ a while," Mikoto said coolly. Three years. That place Mashiro had led them to, did time pass differently behind those doors?

Click.

"So you're a third-year high-schooler now, I take it. And sweet Mai's already gone?" Nagi intuited, wheeling around to hit Mikoto with a signature grin.

The frown he was met with deflected his grin like a shield. "That's right," she said impatiently. Without moving her piercing gaze from, she pulled her schoolbag from off a chair and slung it over her shoulder. "Whatever you want is gonna have to wait, I have school now."

And with only that, she turned and left the room, shutting the door loudly behind her.

* * *

"Mikoto!"

Keisuke kept the status quo firmly in place as he leaped for the girl whose name he'd called jubilantly, the girl he had a crush on. And Mikoto played her part exactly as she had a hundred times before: just before he could catch her from behind, she took off into the air, limning a graceful backwards arc with her body pulled into a tight crouch like some defensive animal. The distance her slender legs helped her clear was nothing short of astounding, as was the silence with which she landed behind Keisuke. As if on cat's feet.

"I'm not in the mood today, Keisuke," Mikoto said as she swept past the handsome goof, today forgoing the combat stance she usually squared off against him with after such an attack. Maybe he said something to her as the distance between them grew, but if he had, it was drowned out by the cacophony of thoughts crowding her head. Worried thoughts related to Nagi's sudden return.

Had the Obsidian Lord returned? Was her big brother okay? She'd have to call him later. And Mai, she missed Mai suddenly a lot more than normal today.

Mai made her think of ramen, and suddenly lunchtime was an eternity away as her stomach moaned. She hadn't had good ramen since Mai stopped being her roommate, come to think.

Stepping in through the doorway to her class, Mikoto immediately made a B-line for Nao. With a combination of thigh-high black socks and a modified skirt at least two inches too short for the classroom, Nao's outfit spoke of how far behind her her days as a nun now were. Although, short-lived though they were, maybe they had changed something in her. Mikoto hadn't heard of her tricking and robbing men in a long time.

"Nao, Nagi showed up in my room today," Mikoto relayed, strictly as a courtesy to a fellow former Hime. She and Nao weren't exactly friends, but she figured the girl had ought to know anyway.

"Oh, that little brat's back? What did he have to say?" Nao asked with marked disinterest as Mikoto took her usual seat directly behind her. Nao didn't even turn to continue the conversation eye-to-eye.

"Nothing. He seemed a little behind, actually," Mikoto admitted. "But I'm scared my big brother might be in danger." Her stomach churned, and she couldn't tell if it was due more to hunger or nerves.

"Well, you should have let me keep an eye on him, then," Nao's voice crept by seductively. Mikoto's pulse instantly quickened its pace.

Fist clenched around a mechanical pencil she'd readied before, Mikoto growled, "He didn't want you, Nao. That wasn't my fault." She was about to push the conversation back on track toward Nagi when Keisuke plopped down in the seat to her immediate left as usual, grinning all the while as he afforded her a covert little wave.

"Just tell the little weasel to bug off," she heard Nao say, unconcerned with what Keisuke overheard. "And if he tries anything, just tell me and I'll send him running with his tail between his legs." Mikoto couldn't be sure from her spot behind Nao, but she thought she heard the girl lick her fingertips, as she had the claws of her Element years ago.

Feeling Keisuke's eyes on her, Mikoto turned to see him looking utterly shocked. "Mikoto," he whispered, "is there something going on with you and a guy that I should know about?"

Just then the teacher walked in and ordered the class to settle. Attendance was taken and lessons started, but all the while, Keisuke would not stop glancing at Mikoto with concern. And Mikoto couldn't stop thinking about Nagi.

She'd might as well have had chalk for lunch, because it tasted just as bland today. Lunch was usually her favourite time of the school day, but Nagi's shadow hanging over her meal had tainted it with suspicion, and it went down like dry sand. The thought of Mai's special ramen seemed even more like an unachievable goal. And the second half of the day hadn't been much better. Although Mikoto was no great student to begin with, she was positive that, in this one day, her grades had taken a major hit. Her tumultuous mood had been so palpable that Keisuke hadn't even tried to sit with her at lunch, or talk to her at all for the rest of the day. Under normal circumstances she might she that as a nice break, she felt anything but normal today.

When the day was done, Mikoto quickly made her way to her dorm in silence. Drawing the curtains and locking the door, she immediately stripped out of her uniform and, not bothering to put anything over her newly exposed underwear, fell onto her bed and clung to the body pillow she'd relied on since Mai's departure. It was over the horizon the pillow made in her field of vision that she spotted steam rising. Then a heavenly scent came to her nose and for a moment she thought that Mai had returned.

A bowl of hot ramen sat on the nightstand beside her bed. It smelled and looked amazing and, when she unquestioningly gulped down a mouthful of the broth, she confirmed that it tasted just as wonderful. If she wasn't sure Mai was gone, she'd second-guess herself after tasting that delicious broth. It was only after she'd come out of her giddy stupor at tasting the ramen that she noticed the small folded piece of paper that'd been tucked under the bowl on the nightstand. Opening it up, she found a single word written in handwriting she didn't recognize:

_Enjoy_.


	2. Chapter 2

"Akira, I made breakfast," Takumi called with a sunny disposition as he strode past the curtain.

"Ah! Don't!" Akira squealed.

From behind her, Takumi immediately stiffened and brought his open hands up like partitions in front of his eyes, calling out a sincere, "Sorry", one which she never would've believed coming from any other boy in the world, given the context. Akira saw him do all this in the mirror before her, in which she also viewed the image he'd just obediently denied himself: Akira, shirtless. She hugged her shoulders to fence off her chest using her arms when she noticed that, even though he'd erected his impromptu blinders, he still didn't back out of her side of the room, separated by a curtain from his. Sure, he'd seen her with her top off before, with her breasts tightly bound beneath _sarashi_ in order to fool everyone into believing she was a boy – but, had he looked, this would've been his first time seeing her in an actual _bra_.

She told herself that it shouldn't make her so nervous; he'd seen the balconette bra as well before, when he'd bought it for her. Apparently he listened more intently to what she said than she'd given him credit for, because one day – the night before which she'd offhandedly complained that binding was becoming progressively more painful, and that she was worried about ruining their shape – he'd presented her, red and rattled, with the gift. It was weird to think of the naive Takumi in a women's clothing store, but not as mortifying as it was to imagine him discussing Akira's bust with some worker there. _How_ the hell had he gotten the right size? His sister's help, maybe?

Her mind drifted from that question to a more pressing matter. Looking past herself – or, rather, behind herself – she took in Takumi's new uniform, that of a high school freshman: a tan, single-breasted jacket covering a beige sweater-vest, itself worn over a white dress shirt, the collar of which spilled out over the lapels of the jacket. He looked very smart, and very handsome, but was also a walking reminder of a decision she didn't want to make.

She sighed. It was getting harder and harder to pass as _handsome_ herself.

Suddenly, the warmth of Takumi's hands on her bare stomach made her jump. Gasping, she saw that his eyes were still completely shut, and he'd wrapped his arms around her middle in a loving way, smiling softly.

"I think you'd look good in a skirt," he assured her, as if to spite the pants she wore, which matched his own.

"Don't say that, Takumi," she begged. She didn't like him speaking so close to her ear...it made her feel...

Their trip to America had been different. Nobody knew them there. The dresses she'd allowed herself to wear seemed to suit her then, but the moment she stepped off the plane in Tokyo, she'd put them completely out of mind. She hadn't even bothered unpacking them, and the bag in which they were so daintily folded still sat on the floor of her dorm closet.

"I thought you wanted to tell them this year," he said. He, of course, was talking about her decision to spend her high school years openly as a girl. She'd discussed a rehearsed explanation with Headmisress Fumi to feed the students, explaining the customs of her obscure village, which dictated her cross-dressing for all of middle school. Even so, she'd grown so accustomed to a boy's uniform. She'd feel exposed in a skirt around so many fellow classmates. Actually, Takumi had interrupted just as she'd been about to replace her bra with the usual bindings, hence her pants.

She'd backed out. She'd already skipped the first day with ostensible sickness because of her indecision. She wanted to keep being a boy to everyone else.

After all, being a boy meant staying in the same room with Takumi. If she came out as a girl, she'd instantly be transferred to her rightful dormitory. On top of that, boys were allowed to be tough, which, as a _kunoichi_, she was, and weren't expected to be dainty. She definitely was _not _dainty. She also simply liked the notion that Takumi was the only boy who knew, and therefore the only boy who could look at her in _that way_. Ashamedly, she admitted that the thought gave her a feeling of butterflies in her stomach.

As she brought her arms up to gingerly push him away, he acquiesced easily, backtracking silently until he disappeared beyond the curtain, eyes closed all the while. Then, after she'd pushed her arms into the jacket – forgoing the wrapping for the more comfortable gift, hoping the jacket would be baggy enough to obliterate any remnants of femininity that might still cling to her figure – she rushed out to meet him on his side. The meeting also introduced her to his rather dejected look of acceptance at her choice of wardrobe.

"What's the problem?" she asked, all confrontation. To her great surprise, he started unbuttoning his jacket.

_Kyaaaa!_

"W-what are you doing, Takumi?!" she asked after she'd spun on her heel to avoid seeing him indecent. And to hide her practically glowing red face.

"Akira, your jacket's too small. I can...still tell you're a girl," she heard him say awkwardly. Before she could grow too hot at that, she heard as he quickly rushed past it with, "You can use mine instead."

Oh, Takumi. He didn't even _want_ her doing this, yet despite that, he was going to help with the upkeep of her deception. Being quite a bit taller and broader through the shoulders than her now, his jacket would surely serve to lend her a more believable boyishness. And she could just pretend she accidentally bought the wrong size. Nobody would question it.

Akira turned just in time to see Takumi hand her his shed jacket, now clad only in the shirt and vest, both of which he filled out _very _nicely.

"Thanks," she said, taking it. Then the whites of Takumi's eyes flashing before her made her breath catch in her throat, and she froze. She'd started switching jackets right away, without bothering to retreat back behind the partition! It'd just seemed so natural to be around Takumi...she...

She couldn't move, seemingly struck with the same paralysis that had taken hold of the boy before her. Granted, she had the same set-up going on underneath the jacket as he, but suffice it to say, she filled hers out nicely too, in her own way. In a way Takumi hadn't seen since America, where he'd spent almost the entire time in a hospital bed, either woozy or tired.

"Takumi..." the boy's name leaked from her mouth as if loosed straight from her heart. Takumi's jacket hit the floor at the same time Akira's back found the door.

"Akira," he breathed. The name was different, the tone was the same.

There was a reason boys and girls had separate dorms. Temptation fell across and permeated the room like a lingering fog all the time, swirling around their thundering chests, making it hard to breathe at times. Since discovering her secret and the love they shared, Takumi had lived in the same room as Akira for three years...they'd both been tight in the grip of that temptation all that time, too.

Why he hadn't opted simply to bend down to kiss her was anybody's guess, for Takumi instead cupped a hand around each of Akira's thighs, gently separating and lifting her legs so that he had the leverage to slide her up along the door. When they were face-to-face, Akira's hand on his shoulder for balance, her legs flanking his hips, then he went in for the kiss. As he felt her thighs press down on his hips like a vice, he thought himself lucky that his girlfriend was such a petite featherweight, for he actually wasn't a physically strong boy.

"Akira, I—"

"Don't, Takumi," she cut in harshly, so that he very nearly dropped her. "If you say anything else, I won't..."

Filling the silence that followed with a few more long, slow, marvellous kisses seemed like a good idea to Takumi. Apparently, Akira agreed, not only because she reciprocated, but also because, a few kisses later, she said, "My back...Takumi...put me on the bed."

Pulling away, Takumi was amazed at the fact that he hadn't seared his lips on her hot red face. But even more than that, he was astounded at the nature of her request. Akira was a self-possessing, assertive type, something Takumi found very desirable, for he lacked those qualities in himself. Those traits meant that, if they'd done this ten times, nine of those times would lead to Akira pulling Takumi along to the bed by the collar if she indeed wanted to go there. The fact that she asked him like that...

He let her slide down until her feet found the carpet. "Sorry," he said, "this was my fault. We've got class to get to before we're late." When he tried to pull her along by the hand as he opened the door, she recoiled. "What's the matter?" he asked, sounding genuine as ever.

"I'll...meet you there. There's something I forgot," Akira explained, flashing him a smile, however uneasy, so he didn't feel like he'd done something offensive. After he'd left, before she could set to work, she heard her cell phone vibrate on the bedside table and flipped it open. It was from Mikoto.

_Nagi's back_

* * *

_Enjoy_. Mikoto read the word ever over as she paced through the halls to homeroom. Whomever had written it seemed like they'd been making ramen forever, it was so good. In the back of her mind, Mikoto thought she might just know who it was, but was too afraid to admit it. She was so focused on the note that Keisuke's pouncing attack went nearly unregistered by her mind. Nearly.

Ears twitching at the sound of her name being sung out from behind, Mikoto brought both her legs up so quickly that the rest of her seemed merely to hang in the air for the time it took Keisuke to overshoot her, diving past where her legs _had_ been. Then she brought them back down atop his head, and, using it as a launchpad, sprang into an expert backflip which arced nearly ten meters. Her skirt fluttered upon landing, and as she watched Keisuke's hunched form on the floor before her, she knew Mai would probably give her grief if she'd been there for likely showing off her panties during yet another display of catlike acrobatics.

Keisuke groaned, but it wasn't a sad, angry, or pained groan. "Good morning, Mikoto," he merely said.

"Hi, Keisuke," Mikoto replied as she folded and stuffed the _Enjoy _note in her breast pocket. Keisuke got up and spun around to reveal the charming smile still amazingly clinging to his face, but an instant later to melted into a look of pure awe as his jaw hung open. Quickly checking herself over and finding nothing, but catching the similar looks of astonishment on every other person in the hallway in her peripheral vision, Mikoto turned.

And what should she see but Akira Okuzaki, all dressed up in a _girl's_ fist-year high school uniform?! Outside of her usual boy uniform, Akira was quite plainly a girl, with a slender figure which shattered any thoughts anyone might have had to the contrary. The white ribbon "boy Akira" usually kept "his" hair tied with had even been replaced with a yellow version to match the jacket of her new uniform. Who knew Akira knew how to accessorize?

...Or could get so _red_?

She looked positively sunburned in the face as she walked amongst her peers, head down, shoulders hunched, hands tugging incessantly at the hem of a skirt she was not used to wearing, as if trying to draw extra length from it that didn't exist. And to say she walked "amongst" her peers was technically wrong, for all had parted like a stage curtain to reveal her in her blushing glory, and stood in slack-jawed reverence at either side of her as if she were a royal precession of one. Everyone, except Keisuke and Mikoto, who were in her path.

Keisuke was the first to break the stunned silence that had fallen over the hall. "When did Okuzaki become a girl?" he asked, sounding comically casual. Thankfully for Akira, the bell chimed melodically right after, and everyone was forced out of their respective trances and on their way to class once more. Only Mikoto stayed where she was, waiting for Akira to reach her.

"Akira, I didn't know you were gonna stop dressing like a boy," Mikoto said, not hiding her excitement, as she took to walking alongside the bashful girl.

"I didn't either," Akira replied. She sounded...disappointed? Mikoto didn't really like that, so to take her mind off of whatever was bothering her – and due to plain curiosity – she took an arcing swipe at the hem of her skirt. It shot straight up as if turned by an inopportune gust of wind, revealing black cycling shorts underneath instead of panties.

"Ah!" Akira cried in a paradoxically husky tone befitting her former male status, slapping down the flipped skirt and going even redder. Wow. "What was that for?!" she bellowed as she clutched bunches of skirt in her fists.

"Just checking. You didn't do it all the way," Mikoto said as if to reprimand, maybe a little let down.

After a few moments of flustered sputtering, Akira finally managed to cry, "It's not like I have any girl clothes, you know!" And, after she'd firmly patted her skirt enough times that she felt secure, she popped her head up quickly with, "Never mind that! Is it true what you said about Nagi?"

Walking along, Mikoto replied, "Yup" with a nod. "I'm worried he might be back to cause trouble," she continued.

"Do you think this has something to do with the Festival?" Akira asked seriously.

Mikoto shrugged, she had no idea.

She also didn't know how much Nagi remembered about each of his Hime. For example, that one of them, in particular, had a weakness of tasty food. And perhaps it hadn't been _forever_, but in the time it'd taken him to see three consecutive Hime Festivals, Nagi had to admit, as he watched Mikoto talk about him, that he'd become quite an expert in cooking. He was glad he'd chosen her and not Nao, for Mikoto was far easier to manipulate. Through her stomach. But mere gestures such as that weren't going to win her over so easily. Although, he'd already uncharacteristically given up on his plan to injure one of her precious feline friends and then come to her as if having rescued it. For some reason, he now thought something like that was going too far.

Maybe it had something to do with his gradual disappearance. Maybe he was losing parts of his personality as the magics drew away from within him, along with everything else. He looked upon his semitransparent right forearm with a mixture of fear, anger and urgency. There was no telling how long he had until this would be for nought. A month? A week? A _day_? Could he still do it given only a day?

Good lord. Not even he had thought that crafting love would be harder than falling in love had been.

Screwing his eyes shut and focusing intensely on the present, he chanted to himself: _I'm here. I'm alive right now. I'm not going anywhere. _When he opened his eyes again, he saw through the light haze caused by shutting them too tightly that his arm was solid once again. He heaved a sigh of relief. This called for a change of tactics...

* * *

Mikoto had spent the rest of the day under the gaze of Keisuke, and more so than usual. Keisuke's mind had flooded with feelings of guilt over his gawking at the newly-feminized Akira and he had over-corrected in making up for it, making sure Mikoto caught him looking her way. Of course, Mikoto, being not so sharp in the matters of the heart as in matters of combat, knew nothing of this. She merely thought that his crush on her was becoming harder to keep on the sly, assuming he had ever attempted to do so. Therefore, it was completely within the realm of possibility that, upon seeing the neatly folded letter lain on her bed, Mikoto assumed it was from Keisuke.

_First ramen, now this?_

_Dear Mikoto,_

From there she read on until her face was suffused with a blush rivalling even that of the skirt-flipped Akira from earlier. Mikoto thought that even Nao might find herself overtaken by it. So honest and unabashed were the words in their profession of undying, unrequited love that, even as she read them, she vowed never to repeat them to anyone. She would just have to take Nao's share of the blush on faith – she could _never_ put it to the test.

Reading through to the end revealed no signature or initial of any kind. Whomever _had_ planted it, they either wanted to remain anonymous, or trusted her to know their identity without being told. Mikoto thought she knew exactly who it was. She, of course, was mistaken.

But how could Nagi know that, even as he congratulated himself on a girl well-snared? He couldn't; at least, not in his current, preoccupied state of mind. Perhaps if he stopped to pay attention to how the first step of his new plan was panning out, he could glean such insight. But no, he was sure enough in his manipulative romantic genius that he felt no need for such a check.

He was already far too busy, and having far too much fun, feverishly scribing the next letter...


End file.
